Introducing Custom Elements and FAQs

Modern browsers are capable of doing amazing things, there are way more CMS options with even more themes & plugins to choose from, and there are lots of front-end libraries/frameworks that make it incredibly easy to develop and design impressively polished and responsive applications in a short amount of time.

In order to adapt to the modern web, we’ve developed a new way to deploy our widgets: custom elements.

What are custom elements?

Custom elements are customized HTML elements. Using Javascript, we define a custom <healcode-widget> HTML element that acts like a Healcode widget.

Is there a functionality difference between the old deployment method and using custom elements?

Currently, a custom element widget deployment only adds functionality to how a widget is loaded on your page. If your website is a single page application (SPA) built with a front-end Javascript web application framework (like Angular, React, Ember, Knockout, etc) or powered by a CMS SPA-like theme, custom elements will allow you to dynamically load a Healcode widget on your website without the use of iframes. In the future we’ll be adding more Javascript functionality for custom element deployments only that will allow users more control over widget content and initialization.

Do I need to change anything about my widgets that are currently deployed?

No, you’re not required to do anything if your widgets are working perfectly fine. However, in the long term we will eventually stop supporting classically deployed widgets. We highly recommend upgrading to custom element deployments sooner than later to keep current with the modern web. If you're currently using an iframe deployment due to any website compatibility issues, we strongly recommend trying custom elements to get the most out of your widgets.